Questions are being raised about plans to build a $1-billion, 700-km highway from Yellowknife to a proposed port on Nunavut’s Arctic coast, paid for by Canadians but which critics say would largely serve Chinese government interests.

Last week, Transport Minister Marc Garneau pledged more than $50 million to the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to study the feasibility of a highway to replace ice roads that are no longer reliable amid climate change.

While local leaders applaud the funding, critics say the largest benefit would go to a mining company, MMG, which is controlled by the Chinese government and holds several mineral deposits in the region where the highway would be built.

“It is worth flagging to people that the main beneficiary will be the Chinese government, more so than the government of Nunavut or the government of Canada,” says Michael Byers, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law. “This is for the mining projects and nothing else.”

Byers does not see a problem with a Chinese-controlled company operating mines in Canada, but he wonders if the company will be allowed to bring in Chinese workers to build the road and if Canadian taxpayers should foot the bill. As governments plan to increase access to natural resources, he says, “We think we’re stumbling into a lot of easy money when in fact the costs are very high and in some cases actually exceed the benefit.”

The proposed route would open up the Slave Geological Province, which contains unexplored zinc and copper deposits, said the mining company MMG in a statement last week.

“On behalf of MMG, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Canadian government for their support and funding,” said CEO Geoffrey Gao in the statement.

The costs are very high and in some cases actually exceed the benefit

The route would be more than 100 kilometres away from the nearest communities, Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay. Still, Stanley Anablak, president of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, says the highway would lower their costs for everything from building materials to loaves of bread, which cost between $6 and $10 at northern stores.

His association represents five communities, which he says are the last to be serviced when a ship from Quebec arrives with supplies once per year. He says his association would also profit from the highway tolls, and he argues Canadians — rather than the Chinese — should pay for the construction to ensure the road is available to the public, not only mining companies.

“Canadian taxpayers have been paying for highways in the southern part of Canada,” Anablak says. “Our organization’s trying to create jobs that are badly needed up here.”

The first all-weather road across the Arctic Circle, the Dempster Highway, was a 20-year project completed in 1979, fulfilling former prime minister John Diefenbaker’s vision for an accessible Arctic two days after he died.

Ice roads, like this one shown in an aerial photo near Yellowknife,are no longer considered reliable due to the warming climate.Ben Nelms/Bloomberg

The estimated cost of constructing the new highway from Yellowknife is $1 billion, but the cost is uncertain due to the challenge of building on melting permafrost.

“The problem with (permafrost) is, if you tear into it just like you do a regular road-building project, you’ll wind up with just a bunch of melting mud,” says Lake Pickell, general manager of Arctic Construction, a contractor with headquarters in British Columbia that has built all-weather roads in the Yukon. “You might have a big grassy plain, and it looks quite beautiful, but if you tear into it … it’ll start to thaw out, and then now it’s black, and it’s thawing, and the sun’s being attracted to it, and you’ve created this open sore in the tundra.”

The highway would require contractors to lay down geotextile matting to prevent the off-site material from mixing with the native soil, says Pickell. He says this type of road could withstand melting permafrost and can even be built atop swamps. To avoid digging into the permafrost, contractors would haul material from off-site and use a bulldozer to compress it.

“You dump, and you ‘doze, and you keep just working your way ahead,” he says.

Correction, Sept. 4: This story has been corrected to note that contractors could use geotextile matting to prevent off-site material from mixing with the native soil. The matting would not circulate cool air to the ground below. Incorrect information appeared in the print edition of the National Post.

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